After the Faraway Tree
by AmberButterfly2002
Summary: Nearly eighty years after Joe, Beth and Franny left the Faraway Tree, Joe's three grandchildren have returned to live in the countryside. But why is the Enchanted Wood being cut down? Why do the people of the Faraway Tree resent them so much? And will the children be in time to save the Faraway Tree?
1. Chapter 1

Hi everyone! This is my very first fanfiction, so I'm still experimenting a bit. I have changed the names of the three main characters in Enid Blyton's _The Faraway Tree_ books from Jo, Bessie and Fannie to Joe, Beth and Franny. The characters Jack, Peg and Timothy are all of my own creating. I really hope you enjoy this story, and please review!

The train chugged on and on through the country meadows, like a thought which kept you distracted but never seemed to go anywhere. The three children stared out the windows. At the window, facing forwards, sat the oldest sibling, Jack. In his arms was clasped a large book with a red cover. Opposite him sat his younger sister Peg. Peg had blotchy freckles and a fat, sad sort of face. Next to her sat the youngest, Timothy, a little wisp of a thing, a handkerchief clutched in his bony little hands. Every now and then he would give a small snuffle and wipe his dripping nose. Apart from this, the children in the carriage did not move at all. All had the distinct impression of town children going to the country and trying to blend in. Their clothes were old, and they clearly had the impression that farm kids wore clothes several centuries out of date.

The train drew up a station, and some people got out, while others got in. 'Jack?' It was Peg. Jack looked up.

'What do you think the cottage will be like?'

'What?'

'The cottage. The one we're to stay in.'

'I don't know,' said Jack. 'The book doesn't say much about it.' He opened the book on his knee. The pages were old and blotched, as if having been painted with tea, and were covered with cramped handwriting, progressing from the messy scrawl of a child at the beginning to the narrow script of an adult.

'I'm confused,' said Timothy, after a particularly loud sniff. 'How is Mrs Josie related to us?' Jack flicked to the back of the book, and placed it on Timothy's knees. The page showed a family tree.

'Look, there are our great grand parents,' he explained. 'They are the ones who took granddad and our great aunties out to the country. See, here's Grandfather Joe, and Great Auntie Beth, and Great Aunty Franny. And here, you can see Granny Connie. This line means that Granny and Grandpa got married. This line here shows their children, just one, which is Dad. Dad married Mum here, and look, here we are. Jack, Peg, and Timothy.'

'Yes, but how is Mrs Josie related to us?'

'She's our aunt you silly, Great Auntie Frannie's daughter.'

'Why doesn't she like being called Aunt? Why must she be Mrs?'

'Mum says that she's a bit odd.'

'Jack.' This was Peg. 'Why must we come out here?'

'Don't be silly. You know perfectly well why. Mum and Dad's divorce is just taking awhile, and when Mrs Josie wrote to ask if we could stay with her it was perfect timing.'

'But why can't we just stay with either Mum or Dad?'

'Shut up. Stop asking questions.'

The train ran on in silence.

When they arrived at the station, they gathered their bags and sat, waiting. The train moved on. Eventually, the bustle of people cleared enough for them to see a woman at the other end of the platform. She had brown hair in two childlike braids, not unlike Peg's, and was wearing a blue checked smock, the sort a child would wear. On seeing them, she bounded over in delight. The children backed away a little nervously. She was like an overgrown child with the face of a fifty year old woman.

'Hello, my friends!' she cried in a sugary voice. 'I'm Josie, and I'm sure we'll be great friends. How was your journey?' No one spoke. After a brief hesitation, Mrs Josie covered up the awkward pause with a high laugh. 'Now who are you all?' she asked. 'You must be... um... Jake, no Jack. And you'll be Peggy, and you'll be Tim. Do come along with me. The cottage is this way. Come, let's hold hands.' She grasped the children's hands, making it very hard for them to carry their bags, and drew them off along a narrow and winding country lane, bordered with hedgerows. As they walked, she pestered them with questions.

'Are you looking forwards to staying in the country?'

'Not really.'

'Oh. Well I'm sure you'll soon love it just as much as I do. What's that book you're holding, Jack?'

'It belonged to Granddad.'

'Oh, Uncle Joe. Is he still alive?'

'Yes, he's in a rest home. He's ninety four.'

'Oh yes, he is, isn't he? He must be absolutely bonkers by now, like my mother. Do you know Frannie?'

'Yes, we met her a few years ago.'

'Did you like her?'

'No.'

'Oh.' Mrs Josie was silent for a bit. 'You really are terribly disagreeable.'

'Oh.'

'Mind your step here.' They all stepped over a sty, fixed to a low stone wall, and passed through a little wicker gate. Before them was a rundown cottage. The mood was very grim. The cottage looked terribly old. Jack recognized it from a sketch in the journal. He knew that it was the one which Granddad Joe and Great Aunty Beth and Frannie had lived in. It did not appear to have been renovated since then, and even in his journal Granddad Joe had described the place as old. The roof was missing tiles, the window sills were rotted, the windows cracked and the weatherboards on the walls crumbling and broken. The garden around it was overgrown, muddy and sodden from the recent rains. The fields surrounding the cottage were wet too, and the sky was low and grey. Everything felt utterly dismal.

Mrs Josie led the way inside. The door's hinges were rusted through, so she had to pick up the door and unplug it from the doorway, and let everyone troop inside, before going in herself and squeezing the swollen door back into the doorframe. Inside was damp, and the surfaces near the windows were covered in moss. A great pile of dirty dishes lay in one corner, apparently on the floor. There was a small stove and a table, and nothing else. Through a door to the side Jack could see a small room, probably Mrs Josie's, while through another door he could see an even smaller room, which Mrs Josie shepherded them into. 'Your bedroom,' she informed them.

The bedroom was tiny, with three beds squished tightly together, all unmade. Jack turned to look up at Mrs Josie. 'Aren't there any other rooms in the house?' he asked.

'These are the only usable ones,' she said. 'There are some more upstairs. Now, shall we all go outside and play?' There was silence. Mrs Josie's face dropped somewhat. 'You... all want to come and play outside, don't you?' Silence. 'Isn't that what children like?' Silence.

I'll explore the house, if you don't mind,' said Jack.

'Oh, all right then,' said Mrs Josie. 'I'll play in the garden.' She went outside, carefully dislodging the door, and then wedging it back in place after her. Jack opened the journal, and flipped to a floor plan of the house.

'Mrs Josie's room was our great grandparents' room,' he said, walking into the old fashioned wooden room. 'And according to the floor plan, the stairs are somewhere near this cupboard.' He stared up at a tall wooden paneled wardrobe. Peg and Timothy, hand in hand, trailed after him. 'Help me move this cupboard, will you?' said Jack, beginning to push at the heavy structure. Peg pushed half heartedly. Timothy hung back, looking scared, his nose dripping down the front of his jersey. The wardrobe shifted slightly. 'Heave!' panted Jack. It shifted again, and again, and Jack could see an opening in the wall behind it. With one last shove, the wardrobe had moved enough to show that behind it was a concealed entrance to an old stairwell, going steeply up. Some stairs were rotted, and the wallpaper was peeling like torn flesh. Peg gave a gulp and stumbled backwards. Timothy gasped. 'I'm not going up there!' he said in a whiney voice which annoyed Jack.

'Does anyone have a torch?' asked Jack. His two siblings looked up at him in silence. 'I'll have a hunt round the house,' he said, and pushing past them walked back into the main room. He hunted around in all the corners of the room, but found nothing save for a candlestick behind the dishes. He pulled it out, and found a box of matches taped to it. 'But I need a torch,' he said. 'Otherwise I'll set the house on fire.'

As he bent down to look under the table, he felt something tug at his shoulder. 'Jack,' said Peg, 'look out the window. Look at Mrs Josie.' Sighing exasperatedly, Jack straightened and strode over to the window. Outside in the garden sat Mrs Josie, perched in the middle of a muddy pool, her skirt trailing in the wet. Surrounding her were rows of mud pies; cakes of it moulded into balls and lain in rows, the outer ones turning pale and crusty as they dried. Mrs Josie's face was streaked with mud, and she had her tongue between her teeth, making mud pie after mud pie. Jack looked away, feeling as though he was looking at something he shouldn't be, or that he was seeing something private and not for his eyes, something sad which almost hurt.

He went back and took up the candle. 'We'll go up with this,' he said. 'I'll have to be careful not to set anything alight. Peg, hold the journal.' Peg did not reach out to take the journal. She took a step back, eyeing him uncertainly with those pale, sad eyes.

'I don't think I want to go up with you,' she said.

'Timothy?'

Timothy stepped back as well. 'I'm not going up there.'

'Well,' said Jack, 'either you come up with me, or you stay down here with Mrs Josie.' One glance out the window at the mad lady making her mud pies decided them. They crept up the stairs after Jack, Peg holding the book, Jack holding the candle high. They walked carefully up the staircase. At the top was a landing, with a room off to one side. The children crept in. It was a large room, with two beds.

'Beth and Frannie's room!' breathed Peg. The beds were still made, though full of mothballs. The room was hung with spiders webs, like garish decorations. There were some children's clothes dotted about the room, as though the inhabitance left very suddenly, or were still there. The faces smiled out of the photographs with youthful ease, as though unaware that one day they would be going batty in retirement homes. Peg shut the journal with a snap.

They moved along the hallway outside the girls' room. 'I'm scared!' whined Timothy.

'Shut up,' snapped Jack. Mounting excitement was filling him, making his heart beat faster and the hand holding the candle shake a little. The room at the end of the hallway was Joe's room, his grandfather's. What if he found something there... something exciting, something which wasn't in the journal. Some clue to this riddle the journal told.

They pushed open the door. The room was very small, with a low sloping ceiling and a bed pushed against one wall. But there was nothing exceptional about the room. Jack stepped cautiously inside, testing the floor in case it was rotted. He moved over to the bed, and felt around under the sheets. Nothing. Under the bed was dark and cobwebby, and Jack could see that, save for what looked like a rat's nest, there was nothing there either. 'Pass me the journal,' he snapped at Peg, and opened it to the very last page. In long slanting hand was printed, Go to my room, for there you will see how to get there. But what did it mean? They were in his room, weren't they? There must be something hidden here, something which would tell them they way. Jack began to search in a chest of drawers, going through the clothes, shaking them out one by one.

Then suddenly, Timothy gave a cry. 'The window, it's out the window!' Jack turned, and raced to the window. But all he could see were rain drenched fields, a wood, and some new building complexes.

'You idiot, Timothy. There's nothing there.'

'Yes there is! Look, the wood. Beside it's a ditch, there, you can see it. And the green of the trees are exactly what the book described. Wait... you can't see the wood properly. Wait for the mist to lift.' A fine mist was wafting through the air, as though someone in the sky was smoking a massive cigarette. The mist lifted for a second. One small second, then back it fell. But Jack had seen what Timothy had described. A wood, infringed by new building complexes and fresh roads, and some of the trees cut down. But the leaves were not those of a normal wood. Time and the evolving world had dimmed the vibrant colour from the days of Joe, Beth and Frannie, but even on a swift glance, one could tell that this was the wood described in the journals, this was the...

'Enchanted Wood,' breathed Peg, her flat nose squashed against the window pane. The three children stood, looking in awe at the wood, now an indistinct shape in the fog. And before it was the ditch, wide and dark, described in such detail in the journal. We can find it now, Jack thought to himself. We'll follow in their footsteps, and see if it's still alive. His finger traced the words embossed in gold on the red cover of the journal. The Chronicles of the Faraway Tree.


	2. Chapter 2

'I don't see why you must go exploring,' grumbled Mrs Josie as she scrubbed the mud from under her fingernails. 'It's perfectly nice here. And I thought you could help me make mud pies.'

'Can we have some dinner please?' said Timothy. Mrs Josie hesitated.

'I haven't been to the shop for a little while... but I'm sure there's something in the cupboard. Go on, pick a plate.' She gestured to the pile of dirty dishes in the corner. The three children recoiled. 'Go on,' she insisted, picking one herself, which was dribbled with something brown. The three children looked at her.

'Well, what's the matter?' Mrs Josie asked, looking at their shocked faces. 'Don't you want dinner?'

Jack, feeling the leader, stepped forwards. 'I'm very sorry Mrs Josie,' he began, 'but the dishes are dir-' But Mrs Josie flung up her hand.

'What,' she said in a low voice, almost scarier to the children than the prospect of eating off dirty dishes. 'What did you just call me?'

'M... Mrs Josie,' quailed Jack.

'Mrs Josie? Mrs? How. DARE. You.' The children backed against the dirty wall as Mrs Josie took a step forward, seeming to tower over them like some fiery giant. 'I am not Mrs,' she said very slowly and loudly. 'I am Josie. You children are never to refer to me with a title again.' She suddenly seemed to shrink back to normal size, and her scowl was replaced with her slightly dilapidated smile once again. 'So friends,' she said in her normal voice. 'Take a plate. They don't bite.' The children each hastily grabbed a plate, and moved to the cupboard, where Mrs Josie - no, Josie, Jack reminded himself - took out some slices of stale bread and cheese, and opened some tins of baked beans, which she instructed the to drink 'straight from the tin,' as she had no spare spoons, and no saucepans to cook them in.

'You see,' she told them as they sat down at the table, 'here there are no rules. Here we are all just children, and we can do as we like. So of course, we needn't bother with washing up, or washing and mending our clothes, or cleaning and tidying the house. Upstairs just got so bothersome that I shut it off, the floor kept nearly caving in. All we do all day is play and be happy.'

'How do we get money to buy food?' asked Jack. Mrs Josie's lips tightened - he had clearly said something wrong.

'There are one or two rules, I feel,' she began, 'that must be established. Firstly, as I have made it clear to you, there are to be no titles when we speak to each other; we use our first names. Secondly, there are to be no chores. You are not allowed to do the dishes, make your beds or wash your clothes. And thirdly, money matters must never be mentioned. The word can never be mentioned under this roof from this moment forth. Do you understand?' The children nodded. 'Good. Now you finish up and put your plates on the dirty dish stack, then go and play.' The children slowly stood up, swallowing the last of their bread and cheese, and placed their plates on top of the tottering stack of dirty dishes. They the crept to the door, unlodged it, and scampered outside, Jack cradling the journal under his arm. They ran out the gate, and up the country lane. Soon they came to the station platform.

'Look!' said Jack. 'There's the Enchanted Wood! We didn't see it last time because the train was in the way. Come on, let's cross the tracks, and I'll read you out some of the journal.' Peg and Timothy followed him glumly, hand in hand. Jack flicked the pages and began to read. ' _The Enchanted Wood must be accessed by jumping over a small ditch. When in the Enchanted Wood, the trees can be heard making a whispering sound. On pressing your left ear to any tree's trunk, the listener can hear what the trees are saying to each other, often relaying messages to the listener._ Wow, that's so cool! Granddad Joe and his sisters must've been pretty mad when they were little. Oh, here's the bit about animals. _The folk of the wood consists of squirrels, rabbits and a number of other little creatures, all of whom can climb trees, talk and wear clothes. There are also many other magical folk, elves, gnomes, pixies and fairies, and the occasional troll mining for jewels amongst the roots of the Faraway tree! (Turn to page 802 for my full account of the attack of the jewel caves.)_ Ah look, here we are!'

The children had arrived at a narrow, deep ditch. It was full of oily water and pieces of litter which fluttered like dying birds in the cold breeze. On the other side lay... a building complex. The children stopped and stared in surprise. 'Maybe this is the wrong ditch?' said Peg.

'But I remember seeing this ditch from Joe's bedroom window,' said Jack. 'Wait... I remember seeing this building complex too, but we've come a good way too far along. Come this way.' The children walked along the ditch, until the building complex ended and the wood began. 'They've been chopping down the enchanted wood!' said Jack, indignant. 'Look at all those tree stumps. The woods must've been much bigger in Grandpa Joe's day.' The children peered into the wood, which seemed dark and mystical.

One by one, they jumped over the ditch. They looked around, terrified and awe filled excitement filling them. They were in the Enchanted Wood.


	3. Chapter 3

Over the ditch and beneath the trees, the wood felt more mysterious than ever. The trees swayed slowly back and forward, and sang a strange, leafy song.

 _Woosh - a - woosh - a. Woosh - a - woosh - a - whoosh - a._ The sound made the children feel a little sad.

Jack pressed his left ear to the trunk of the nearest tree. Suddenly, the whooshing sound became words, as though he had been trying to read a piece of paper covered with sand, and had brushed the sand off to read the message. The tree was whispering seemingly to itself. _Soon to die,_ it sang, in a sad leafy voice. _Soon to be cut down, and rot on the floor of this forest I love. Soon to die..._ Then it seemed to pause, as if noticing Jack's ear. _What is this?_ It breathed. _Who is this that comes pressing and prying into my thoughts?_

'Hello,' said Jack out loud. 'My name's Jack.'

 _Jack?_

'Me and my siblings have come to stay in a house close by.' A spark of inspiration came to him. 'Did you ever know a little boy called Joe? And his sisters Beth and Frannie?

 _Joe, Beth and Frannie... but of course. Everyone in the wood knows those three children. Why, they are history itself. They helped rid the tree of trolls, and free the inhabitants when they were captured by goblins, and liberated the Enchanted Wood from the spell holding us frozen in time. All the little rabbits and squirrels, and all the baby gnomes and pixies and elves and fairies are told in bed at night the tales of what those children did. Know them? Why, I was the tree who first spoke to Joe. It was me whom he first pressed his ear against, and I spoke to him. As if I didn't know who Joe, Beth and Frannie are!_

'I know them too!' said Jack, bubbling over with excitement. 'Why, Joe's my grandfather!' It was as if the whole forest suddenly went silent. The trees stopped their _woosha-woosha noise_ , the birds stopped chirping, even the wind seemed to momentarily pause. Then, with one voice, the whole forest inhaled and spoke.

 _Grandchildren?_

Then suddenly, the three children were surrounded by rabbits and squirrels and foxes and hares... all wearing clothes! And very nice clothes, too. The foxes were all in navy blue suits and hats, while the rabbits wore floral shirts and dresses. All looked awfully up at the three children. A pattering of feet came, and a large family of dwarves came running to join the circle, followed by some pixies, gnomes, elves and several faeries.

'Um, hi,' said Jack. 'Er, my name's Jack, and these are my siblings Peg and Timothy. We, erm, came here to see if the Enchanted Wood and the Faraway Tree were still here.' There was wild applause to this.

One of the squirrels called out, 'Are you really the Three Children's descendants?'

'We're Joe's grandchildren,' said Jack, rather enjoying all the attention, and also feeling rather shocked that a squirrel had just spoken to him in perfect English.

'Please, great royalty, won't you come and visit my family?' asked a rabbit.

'No, mine!' someone else yelled. Soon there was a great clamor of voices as all of the wood folk argued over each other. The trees whooshed with such ferocity that crosswinds began to form, and the dwarves began to pull out their axes.

'Stop!' cried Jack. The wood folk froze, and the trees fell silent. 'Who is in charge here?' he demanded.

An elderly gnome stepped forwards. 'If you wish, your highness, you can come to the headquarters of the Council.'

'The council?'

'The council is a collection of two or so representatives of each species inhabiting the woods, your highness. We would be honored if you joined us and we could inform you on the current situation of the Wood and the Tree.'

'Of course,' said Jack. 'Thank you very much. Where is the headquarters?'

'Follow me,' said the gnome, and lead the way through the trees to a large clearing filled with toadstools big enough to sit on. The children were offered the three biggest toadstools, while the other members of the council sat around on smaller ones. All the other wood folk clustered in the trees on the outskirts of the clearing to watch. An old wizard with a tall hat began to speak gravely.

'Greetings, O great and mighty ones. It is an honor beyond what you could imagine for you to come here, and a great help, in times like these. We of the Enchanted Wood are facing troubles beyond the imagination of your grandparents' time. As you have undoubtedly seen, parts of the Wood are being chopped down for building complexes and new roads. But this in itself it a very minor problem compared to some. Tourists have begun to come into the forest, after a photo was snapped of young Cottontail here a year back wearing a pink shirt.' He gestured towards a rabbit with a blue coat, who sniffled sadly. 'If he were not himself the great descendant of Sir Flopsy the rabbit himself -'

'I know him!' said Jack excitedly. 'He was the one who discovered the Trolls in the Jewel Caves.'

'Ah yes,' said the wizard. 'That was a great day indeed in the history of the Wood... though of course, those were the days when the Wood and the Tree still worked in harmony.'

'In harmony?'

The wizaard leaned back on his toadstool, and eyed Jack carefully. 'Many, many things have changed since your grandfather and great aunts left,' he began. 'But to tell them all to you I must tell you a story, beginning from when your grandfather and his sisters left the country forever. Are you prepared to hear the whole tale?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Well, here it is. After your great grandparent's sudden death, your grandfather and his sisters were shocked and grieved. You know, of couse, why your great grandparents died?'

'Oh yes,' said Jack promptly. 'Grandfather Joe explains it in great depth. After their cousin Connie - who had been staying with them - left, the children tried to persuade their parents to come to the Wood. Eventually, they fully persuaded them to come into the Wood and up the Tree, but they didn't tell their friends, as they wanted it to be a surprise. But as soon as their mother and father jumped the ditch, they fell down dead. The children were shocked of course, but the trees explained to them that it was because a spell had been put on the Wood that any adult who tried to enter the Wood would fall and die. So the children were sent away to stay with their cousin Rick's family. They never came back.'

'That is quite true,' said the Wizard. 'Did your story in your grandfather's journal also mention that your great grandparents broke the protection spell on the wood?'

'No,' said Jack.

'Ah,' said the wizard. 'You see, when your great grandparents tried to enter the Wood, the contrast between the adults, which the Wood hated, and the children, whom the Wood loved, was too much, and the spell was broken.

'The children were sent away to live with their cousin and never returned, doubtless because they were scared that as they were now adults they would die if they entered the Wood. But we in the Wood were ecstatic. We couldn't believe our luck. The spell was broken, and suddenly we were free. We were able to learn the ways of the world outside, listen to music, learn to write books, make things we had never thought possible before.

'The Folk of the Faraway tree took an interest in the outside world at first. They tried new things and stayed up to date with stolen newspapers. But very soon they lost interest, and continued on with the old ways they had been trapped in for so many years.

'And so it continued this way. We of the Enchanted Wood protected the Wood and the Tree by constantly stealing the builder's and forester's equipment, and various important deeds and contracts went missing as well. People began to avoid the wood, as they believed that it had bad luck. We protected the Faraway Tree. In return they did... nothing. True, they thanked us for all we did, but they refused to change their ways and step away from their tradition. And this infuriated us. You see, the people of the Faraway Tree refused to accept time. We stood it all for a bit, ignoring the rise of new music, the changing of film stars, the gradual development of fashion and such like. But gradually, things began to get strained. Until finally, when they refused to accept that Bob Dylan had gone from folk to electric, we'd had enough. I suppose you could forgive them for this slight, as they are the 'Folk' of the Faraway Tree, but by this time we were sick of it. So we stopped defending the tree. Instead, we began to organize an escape plan.

'Gradually, we began to move people away. The squirrels are gradually migrating to Hyde Park, while the fairies and gnomes are going to Kew Gardens. The pixies are going to the gardens of Buckingham Palace, while the rabbits are all off to the Lake District. Which is why there are not many of us left here.

'You must understand, that the further away from the Faraway Tree the Wood folk are living, the more liberal minded and globally aware they are. The further in, the more conservative. The Wood is an island, with the Faraway Tree at it's core. As the tide of the world creeps up, and the waves of wood cutters and property developers erode more and more away, the people on the outskirts begin to move away. The island becomes smaller again, and more folk who were originally more conservatively minded become more and more liberal, before finally becoming so liberal that they see that their habitat is endangered and move away. One day, all of the Wood will be gone, and all that will be left is the Faraway Tree. But I will not be here for that day. I am off to New Zealand on the next fair wind, and will spend the rest of my days on the set of Hobbiton smoking my electric cigarette outside a Hobbit Hole.'

The wizard fell silent. The whole gathering was deep in thought. Peg and Timothy were leaned forwards, intense interest on their faces, though they had not spoken the whole time. Finally, Jack stood up.

'Thank you very much for your time, everyone. Me and my siblings will be off to the Faraway Tree. We wish to meet the folk there.' The Wood folk gave each other sidelong glances, but said nothing. 'We'll find our own way,' said Jack hastily, as the old Wizard began to stand up. 'Thank you very much for all your time, and for the story. It was a great help, and there are a plenty of blank pages in the back of the journal where I might fully complete the tale.'

The wizard smiled. 'It was all of the Wood folk's pleasure, my dear boy. I hope you have - er, luck - with the Tree folk. Be warned, they may not be as partial to you as we are. We all honour what your parents did for us, while the Tree folk are not so pleased with the current state of affairs. Farewell, descendants of the Three.'

Jack stood up, and, taking Peg and Timothy by the hands, led them out of the glade, the wizard's story filling his head.


	4. Chapter 4

The children walked through the wood, following a little animal track through the trees. They passed clusters of pink and red mushrooms, and emerald green patches of moss. Little mice and squirrels hurried here and there. The leaves above them became denser, and the light around them turned into a sort of green twilight. It was then that they reached the trunk. At first, the children thought that they had come to a solid wooden wall, for before them stood something so tall and so wide that they couldn't see it's top and sides. This was the first time the children saw the Faraway Tree.

It's trunk stretched high into the clouds, sprouting branches here and there as it grew. The bark was a gradient of darks and lights, at points papery and white, darkening to almost black and then lightening to chestnut brown. The green hue from the Enchanted Wood, sent a kaleidoscope of lights and patterns trailing over the lumps and crevasses carved by nature on the Tree's great sides. The children began to walk slowly around the Tree, marvelling at every tiny detail; each root bumping out of the soil like a vein on the back of a hand, each fallen leaf lying twisted at their feet, each low hanging branch swaying like a crooked arm above their heads. Jack looked from the diagrams in the journal to the real thing with mounting excitement, while Peg trailed her fingers along the bark, and Timothy rubbed each bulging root with tentative fingertips. They walked and walked, until finally they came the whole way around. The air seemed surrealy still, and the whole Wood seemed to be holding its breath to see what the children would do.

'Let's climb up,' said Jack. He flicked over a few pages in the journal and found the one he wanted. 'Franny, Beth and I,' he read, 'found that the best way to climb up is beside the slippery slip, as there are good foot holds, and it is also the most used path.'

'Is the slippery slip that big hole in the trunk we passed?' asked Peg.

'I think so,' said Jack. 'Let's take a look.'

The three children hurried around the Tree to a large hole set a little back in the trunk. Under it was a large cushion of emerald green moss. Peg pushed on it, and it sprung back like spongy foam. They were startled by a little voice.

'Could I please have your cushions?'

They looked up and around. Who had spoken? Then Timothy wordlessly pointed. On the ground close to them was a little red squirrel in a tattered red coat with bright golden buttons. His tail bobbed out behind him and he looked up at them with bright, intelligent eyes.

'Good morning, and how may I help you all today?'

The children were a little taken aback. But Jack remembered parts of the journal mentioning something similar. 'Are you the Red Squirrel?' he asked. 'Are you the squirrel who lives at the foot of the tree and helps with the slippery slip?'

'Yes, I am that squirrel,' said the Red Squirrel. His voice was very high and shrill. 'This hole here is the end of the slippery slip. The inside of the Tree is hollow, you see, and the slippery slip is a slide that goes right down the middle of the tree. It's much quicker than climbing all the way down. When people come down, I take their cushions… like this.' At that moment, a fat goblin sitting on red cushion came whizzing out of the dark mouth of the slippery slip, and landed on the moss. He stood up, and nodded to the Red Squirrel, barely noticing the children, before striding hurriedly on his way. The Red Squirrel took the cushion he had been sitting on, and at that moment a rope came swinging down the Tree. 'The person at the other end of the rope is called Moonface,' explained the squirrel in his shrill little voice. 'His house is at the very top of the Tree, and it is where the slippery slip begins. He owns the cushions too, and when people borrow them to go down on, I am the one who sends them back up.'

Moonface. The very name gave Jack thrills of wonder and excitement. He squinted up the tree and into the bright sunlight above, and, as the Red Squirrel tied the rope around the cushion and gave it three tugs, Jack imagined the little round faced man at the top of the tree, hauling and hauling on the rope, the little man who had known his grandparents and had had so many wonderful adventures with them.

'Will you be climbing up today?' asked the Squirrel.

'Yes, of course,' said Jack, tucking the journal inside his coat. 'Thank you for your time.' He was about to begin the climb up the tree, when Timothy turned to the squirrel.

'Why do people have to slide down the slippery slip with cushions?' he asked.

'To stop them fraying the backs of their clothes,' explained the Squirrel.

'Oh! Like Connie, when she first visited the tree and fell down the slide without a cushion,' said Timothy. The Squirrel stared at him in shocked surprize.

'You… you know of the Three Children?'

'It was just a story Jack told me,' said Timothy, going pink around the ears and stepping back. He knew Jack would be cross with him afterwards.

The Squirrel looked at Jack suspiciously. 'Oh, it's nothing,' said Jack. 'We were just listening to some of the little Wood rabbits telling stories. Timothy likes stories, and pretending that they're true.'

'Oh but they are true,' said the Red Squirrel, his little voice becoming worried. 'What terrible things those children did. Of course, the young girl Connie was only a friend, I suppose. Ah, we used to love them. Some of the people in the Tree still feel soft towards them.' He sighed, and shook his head. 'But it's not for me to be gossipping like this,' he said. 'You're probably in a hurry to get somewhere, and I've been keeping you with all my chatter. Good day to you.' And he bounded off into the mouth of the slippery slip.

'What were you thinking, Timothy?' growled Jack. 'The people in the Tree clearly hate our grandparents - didn't you listen to a word of what the wizard said?'

'Y - yes,' whispered Timothy.

'Why would you go and talk about Connie? You're stupid, Timothy - you'll never be smart. You might as well keep your mouth closed when anyone else is talking. Just shut up and blow your nose, then we'll start climbing.'

Timothy turned away, so as not to show Jack that he was crying, and blew his nose loudly on his shirt. Peg stared at Jack with those sad, pale eyes. Jack glared back, trying to hold her gaze, until he filled with guilt and had to drop his eyes to the Wood floor. Timothy turned back to them, puffy eyed and with a nose only slightly less snotty than before.

'Right,' said Jack. 'Let's start climbing.'


	5. Chapter 5

Jack led the way up the Tree, finding footholds in the worn, notched bark. The climb was easy. The journal fitted snugly under Jack's arm as he climbed. He imagined Grandpa Joe climbing this tree before him, and his sisters. In the photos and drawings pasted in the journal, the three children were very nice looking. Grandpa Joe had curly hair slightly on the long side, and a very sensible, grown up sort of face. Beth was pretty and good girlish, while Frannie had a button nose and freckles sprinkled like freshly ground pepper across the map of her face. Of course, Jack thought, they didn't look like that now. Grandpa Joe drooled all down his front, and Beth had no teeth, and Franny couldn't remember who he was. Jack pretended that the children were with him now. No longer old, they were bounding up the tree beside him, as young and free as the Wood folk seemed to think they were. Up ahead of him, Jack pretended he could hear Joe's voice. 'A bough up ahead, hurry up Franny, up you come, Beth!' He tried to remember the exact sequence of events that had happened when the children first climbed the tree.

'Well, they helped some Brownies save some precious papers from a gnome,' he said to himself. 'And then they climbed up the tree. What happened first? Oh yes, the tree grew acorns, and Joe threw one at Mr Whiskers, the head Brownie.' He glanced down the tree and yelled, 'Hi, you two, look out for fruit!' But on looking down, he saw that both Peg and Timothy were sitting on a branch a little way below him, eating, of all things, plums. He clambered down. 'Where did you get those?' Peg pointed at a branch laden with the dark fruit hanging just above their heads. Jack picked one. It was the juiciest, sweetest thing he had ever eaten.

'Now,' said Jack, 'the next thing in the tree to look out for is a little window. He drew a picture… here.' He opened the journal and showed a page titled _The Angry Pixie: Our long suffering friendship_. Below it was a lot of small, cramped writing, and a drawing of a beautiful little window with a wooden frame set into the bark of the tree. 'Look out for it,' said Jack, 'but don't go peeping in. The Angry Pixie lives in a little house behind the window, and he gets cross if people peep in.' Peg and Timothy looked at Jack in silence, who threw his plum stone down the tree and began climbing again. Climbing the Tree was easy. Jack had climbed trees before, but all had had irregular branches and prickly twigs. The Faraway Tree felt as though it had been grown specially to climb. The branches were broad and wide, and there were plenty of easy footholds all the way up. At times there were even little tracks worn smooth into the bark by many tiny feet of travelers going up and down the Tree. In tricky places there were ropes hanging, and sometimes little handrails.

Then Jack saw it. A little window, small and neat, the exact size the drawing had depicted. Jack put a finger to his lips, and nodded Peg and Timothy forwards. All three children leaned cautiously towards the window. Then small, clumsy Timothy stumbled and, in trying to save himself, grabbed at the window. The little window's hinges bent and broke with a loud snap, and the window dangled from a lone hinge like a torn off limb. Inside the room, a tiny little pixie, who had been sitting at a low table, leapt up.

'Peeping again! How many times…' This was until he saw the broken window, and poor, shocked Timothy, with Peg beside him. Jack had stayed artfully out of sight. The pixie's face crumpled and creased like a twisted piece of newspaper, his eyes bulged and his temples throbbed. 'You!' he bellowed at Timothy. 'What do you think you're doing, breaking private property? I have a good mind to throw you down the Tree! You'll be paying for that… and this is for starters!' He picked up a large glass jug of water, and flung it at Timothy. It hit his shoulder, and both Timothy and Peg were showered with broken glass and hot water. There was a silence, as the Angry Pixie waited for a reaction and the children stood, silent. Then finally, he asked, 'Well, are you going to cry?'

Jack knew how it worked. Peg never, ever cried. If someone did or said something mean to her, she would simply stare at them with her fat, blank, blotchy freckled face, until they couldn't meet her eyes. Timothy did cry, but he wordlessly followed the example of his sister, and if she chose not to cry when a jug had been thrown at them, then he wouldn't either. Jack had seen it all before.

The Angry Pixie was looking a little guilty. He hopped on one foot, and then the other. He could clearly not meet the children's eyes. 'Well, aren't you going to leave?' he asked. Peg kept her unblinking eyes fixed on the pixie for a few moments longer, before turning and walking back along the bough, Timothy following.

Jack moved nervously forwards. He tried to pass the pixie's window unnoticed, but the pixie hadn't seen him anyway. He was staring into the distance, a frown on his face. 'Strange,' he muttered. 'Standing there staring. No crying… no noise. Just staring.' He shook his head and turned away. Jack continued on. Timothy and Peg were waiting for him on the next bow. He didn't mention the broken window, and they didn't mention the fact that he hadn't come to their defence when the Angry Pixie attacked them. Instead, they all continued climbing.


	6. Chapter 6

After climbing a little further, the children stopped on a broad branch, thouroughly tired out. After catching his breath, Jack pulled out the journal.

'" _After surviving the terrifying experience of having water thrown over Beth by the nasty little Pixie, we continued climbing, up and up. Then came a surprize. We came upon a sweet little door with a little knocker and a brightly polished bell. We didn't know it then, but this was Silky the Fairie's door._ " Silky the fairy! Let's keep climbing and see if we can find it. Keep an eye out, everyone.'

The children continued climbing methodically up the tree. After only a few branches, Jack caught sight of a flash of yellow through the leaves. On rounding the curve of the Tree, he stepped onto a wide bough. Before him, set into the trunk of the Tree was a dear little yellow door. It indeed had both a knocker and a bell. Peg and Timothy caught up, and Jack stepped nervously forwards. He held up a hand to knock, then seeming to change his mind, and instead opened the journal.

'" _We knocked on Silky's door and hid,_ ' he read. _'From inside, Silky called "I'm washing my hair! But if that's the butcher, then please leave a pound of sausages." We found this very funny, until she returned this with "If it's the oil man I don't want anything this week. If it's the red dragon, he must call again next week." This scared Beth a little, until the door opened and a pretty little Elf in a green dress with fluffy yellow hair came out. She introduced herself as Silky, and let us come inside.'_ Having seemingly found new courage in this paragraph, Jack tucked away the journal and knocked on the door.

From inside, a bright little voice called out, 'I'm washing my hair!'

Does she always wash her hair? Jack wondered.

' - but if that's the butcher, then please leave three pounds of sausages.' The children looked at each other in astonishment. Or more correctly, Jack looked at the other two, who looked perfectly unsurprised, so Jack had to suffice with feeling astonished inside.

'If it's the oil man, I don't want anything this week,' continued the voice. 'If it's the red dragon, he must call again next week.' At that moment, the door opened, and a pretty little creature stepped out with fluffy golden hair still damp from a fresh wash. Jack wasn't sure whether she was elf or fairy, but she was certainly Silky. 'Did you ring my bell?' she asked, looking up at them in a friendly sort of way. 'What do you want?'

'We just wanted to see if Silky still lived here,' said Jack. 'You are Silky?'

'Yes of course. I'm always here. Do sit down - I've made some popcakes.' Jack had heard of popcakes. Whenever he went to visit his grandparents and his Great Aunts, they would always grouch about the quality of food at the retirement homes.

'What happened to the good old fashioned popcakes?' they would invariably ask.

'What are popcakes?' Jack would ask, which would be followed by a very long and detailed explanation of delicious biscuits with crispy outer shells, which, on being bitten into, would burst, filling the mouth with warm honey and nectar.

'We'd love some, thanks very much,' said Jack. The children sat down on the bough, and Silkie, wrapping her hair in a towel, joined them with a large tin of popcakes.

'Where are you going?' she asked.

'We're not sure yet,' said Jack. 'I was thinking of going to the top of the Tree… but I'm not sure yet.

'It should be lovely up in the clouds today,' said Silky. 'Of course, we Tree folk don't go up to the lands at the top of the Tree much anymore.'

'Lands?' asked Jack. Then his face cleared. 'Oh! I remember. Grandfather Joe - I mean - I've heard about the lands at the top of the Tree before.'

'Yes,' said Silkie. 'You see, at the top of the Tree there is a ladder leading into a hole in the clouds. If you go through the hole, you'll find yourself in a strange new land. And every few days, a new land comes to the top of the Tree.'

'I remember now!' cried Jack. 'Every cloud has a different land on it. There's the Land of Birthdays, the Land of Do as You Please, the Land of Treats...'

Silky heaved a sigh. 'They used to be like that,' she said. 'Why, I remember when they were all beautiful and happy… even the odd few bad ones were bearable. But now… oh, they're so awful. There are the lands of Healthy Food, Free Wifi and Computers, just to name a few. We tried to go into some, but they were terrifying. Just recently we've had the land of Fitness.'

'Do you know what land is there today?' asked Jack. Silkie shook her head.

'I'm not sure… you'll have to find out. What are your names?'

'I'm Jack,' said Jack. 'Ad this is Peg, and this is Timothy.'

'You younger ones aren't terribly talkative,' said Silky. 'Then again, none of the people in the Tree are, except I and Moonface, and even I'm not hugely talkative compared to most people. You know, sitting here on this bough reminds me of something.' Her brow furrowed a little as her pretty mind roved the many thousands of days back to those golden ones before the spell was broken. Then her brow unfurrowed, and Jack knew that she had remembered sitting here just the same but so many years ago, with the same children, only three generations back. She opened her mouth, then changed her mind and closed it. Though he knew he shouldn't be, Jack was intrigued.

'Do children often come up the tree?' he asked.

'Oh, plenty. I do so love talking to the little rabbit children, and the baby pixies and rabbits and foxes. They all come up here and I talk to them on my bough. But I haven't had human children up here for many years. There were three very sweet children who used to come here every day, year after year. Why, Moonface and I practically became their siblings. It was wonderful; they were always merry and smiling, and there were endless adventures. But then of course, they broke the protection spell. Quite by accident I imagine, but still, they brought ruin to the Wood and the Tree. We try not to think about them now much. But there haven't been any fun adventures since. We've been to scared to go into the lands at the top of the Tree, and of course that's where all the adventures happen.' Silky sighed and swung her legs.

'Well, we'd better be getting on,' said Jack. 'But thanks for the popcakes.'

'My pleasure,' said the little fairy - or pixie, Jack couldn't make up his mind but didn't want to ask. 'Do come again. I'll make some tea and we can have some lovely talks.' She hesitated, and looked closely at Jack. 'You remind me of someone,' she said thoughtfully. 'You look a little like…' but she shook her head and waved them away as they climbed up the knobbly bark.


	7. Chapter 7

On the next bow, the children paused to eat some apples growing on a twiggy branch, and Jack opened the journal.

' _After sharing our food with Silky, and eating some of her delicious popcakes (recipe on page 111), we continued climbing. Soon we heard a loud roaring which we mistook for an aeroplane. When we drew level with the bough, we saw a funny old gnome in a deck chair fast asleep, snoring dreadfully loudly. Silky had warned us about him. His name is Mr Watzisname, because he has no name, or at least, he cannot remember it. Silky warned us not to put anything in his wide open mouth (though it was tempting) and not to wake him, or he would get very cross.'_

Jack tucked away the journal and threw away his apple core, wiping his sticky fingers on his trousers. Peg and Timothy wordlessly followed him as he began to climb the tree again. Soon they heard a loud noise, growing and dying, and growing then dying again. 'It's Mr Watzisname,' hissed Jack. They rounded the corner and stepped onto a broad, flat bough, on which was a deck chair. In the deck chair sat the oddest looking gnome they had ever seen. He was fat, with a large nose and an even larger mouth. His mouth was so wide that Jack felt tempted to pick a horse chestnut (which happened to be growing close at hand,) and put one in his mouth. There was something dreadfully annoying about that gaping black mouth. Jack felt as if the old gnome had no right to have such a big mouth, to be allowed to sleep and disturb everyone else in the Tree, to have the right to get cross if anyone woke him and yet no one having the right to get cross at him for being so noisy. In the journal, he recalled, the children had loved Mr Watzisname, and had had all sorts of fun with him. But all he had done was be annoying and get in the way. This last part may not have been entirely true, but Jack was getting himself worked up at this point.

Jack knew that he wouldn't really dare put a chestnut in the old gnome's mouth. So instead he passed by very noisily, calling loudly to Peg and Timothy. Th gnome did not wake. The children reached the other side of the bough and continued climbing. They came to the next bough, which was directly above the other. And suddenly, Jack could keep down his annoyance no longer. He picked a large, prickly chestnut and, taking careful aim, threw it at the bare head of Mr Watzisname. Jack had a good aim, and he hit Mr Watzisname square in the forehead. The old gnome woke with a start, and began to look around, shouting angrily. This filled Jack with a guilty pleasure. He knew it was naughty, but if felt really good. He continued climbing onto the next bough, mildly conscious that Peg and Timothy were watching him. He knew what their expressions would be. They would be sad, questioning. So he did not turn around.

On the next bough, Jack read from the Journal again. ' _The next event was a loud sound of water, splashing down from bough to bough. Silky had warned us of an old lady who lived in the tree by the name of Dame Washalot, who washed all day long. She would throw her dirty water down the tree when she was done with it. Franny and I ducked under boughs when we heard the water coming, but poor Beth didn't have time and got soaked all over again'_. Jack tucked away the journal, and continued climbing. Soon, they heard water pouring down the tree. Luckily for them, Dame Washalot decided to pour the water down a different side of the Tree, so there was no need to duck under the Tree's broad branches.

They soon passed Dame Washalot. She was standing on a broad bough, her hands in a tin washtub, a large starched apron tied around her substantial frame. On a smaller branch hung her washing. On each piece of washing sat a little baby rabbit or squirrel to keep it from blowing away. They watched for a bit, as Dame Washalot flung a muscular arm into the washtub, and dragged out a piece of washing, which she would then wring out and twist as though she were beheading a chicken, then slab onto the bough and plonk a new baby squirrel onto it. Once she had gone through all the washing, she heaved the massive tin tub up onto one shoulder, walked to the edge of the bough and flipped it effortlessly, watching all the scum and bubbles and water go flowing down the tree in a weird sort of waterfall to fall on an unsuspecting traveler's head. 'Right,' said Jack. 'Next stop: Moonface.' Jack had been longing to meet Moonface ever since he had first got the journal. Moonface had been Joe's best friend, and they had done everything together. And maybe... just maybe, Moonface might mistake Jack for Joe.


	8. Chapter 8

The children kept climbing, until they were at the top of the Tree. When they spread out the leaves and looked down, Jack felt quite giddy. The forest was a pale green blob far below, with the ditch a narrow line of ink and the building site a few silver toothpicks. Jack moved back towards the trunk of the Tree, and saw it. A ladder, leading up into a dark purple hole in the clouds. 'Wow,' said Jack. 'Look, through that hole we can get into any land we please.' The three children looked at it in awe, until their eyes slipped from the hole and down the uppermost branches of the Tree, to where a round door was fitted snugly into the trunk of the Faraway Tree. 'It's Moonface's house,' said Jack in delight. 'I wonder if he's home.'

Inside, Jack's mind was boiling with delight. Here was his chance. Moonface was behind that door. The little round faced man who had been such a good friend to Joe, who had been through so many adventures with the children. And yet, he was more than that. To Jack, he was something of a god, someone who could solve all his problems and make everything better. At nights, hiding under the covers and hearing his parents yelling at each other downstairs, Jack would pretend Moonface was there with him. He and Moonface would talk for hours about the adventures they might have, and the things they might do together.

Jack walked up to the door. How smooth the wood was. What a nice shape it was. He brushed his artfully too long hair into his eyes, the way Joe had it in the photo, and partially unbuttoned his jersey, the way Joe had it, then held up his hand to knock. He held it there. He did not move. Five minutes may have passed. Peg and Timothy did not move but for blinking. The three children stood there, like a part of the Tree. The wind blew their hair and ruffled their jerseys and Peg's skirts, before brushing through the leaves. The children remained. Then finally, Jack dropped his hand and walked away. Peg and Timothy wordlessly followed him, like two obedient shadows. The children climbed all the way down the Tree. They walked through the wood, and jumped back over the ditch. Only then did Jack sit down in the long grass and cry.

When they arrived home, tired, wet and dirty, Mrs Josie clapped her hands. 'Ah, so you've been playing! If only I'd come too.' Jack was too confused and sad even to look at her. He walked straight into her bedroom, and squeezed through the gap between her wardrobe and the doorframe of the stairway. He climbed the stairs, and walked along the hallway into Joe's room, where he sat on the bed.

Why couldn't he knock on the door? Why wasn't he more like Joe had been? He tried, didn't he? The clothes, the hair, the words. He was always looking after his younger siblings, chastising them when they did something wrong, making sure they followed him through thick and thin. And yet… Joe would have knocked on the door. Joe would have gone in and seen Moonface, and greeted him like an old friend. Joe was perfect in every way, everything which Jack had ever wanted to be.

Jack heard Mrs Josie calling him to dinner. He heard the sound of crockery being picked up off the stack, and of fingers scraping plates. The smell of old meat wafted up the stairs. Then the sound of plates being put back again, and the high, buzzing sound of Mrs Josie's voice.

The sky darkened. Jack lay back on Joe's bed. Once upon a time, Joe had lain here. Had he watched the moon rise like that over the Enchanted Wood, making it shimmer and glow like a haze of fairy dust? Had he looked at that crack on the ceiling and thought that it could be a rabbit, or perhaps a duck? Had he looked at that dark corner and wondered what lurked there?

Jack suddenly felt ready to go downstairs. He was sick of being up here, alone in Joe's room. Joe could be dead now, for all he knew. Joe certainly hadn't been well, when he had last seen him. He had been drooling and saying silly sentences that didn't make sense, and certainly wasn't the strong, brave boy in the journal. In Jack's mind, as soon as a child became an adult, they became an entirely different person, and as soon as they turned from an adult into an elderly person they changed once again. 'So really,' he mused, 'Joe's been dead for ages.' With that he got up and went downstairs.

Mrs Josie was outside, so Jack had no trouble slipping from her room into the one he shared with Peg and Timothy. He felt his way between Peg and Timothy's beds, and found his own. He lay down in the wrinkled covers, face up, looking at the black ceiling. Peg and Timothy breathed beside him. For a while they lay in silence. Jack breathed in and out, and in and out. The breath rolled in like waves, in through his nose and down the back of his throat. The air was cold, and chilly tendrils of foam seemed to rub against the sand of his his lungs, before sliding back out again in the gentle washing of a departing breaker.

It was at the point when one of these waves came washing in that Jack opened his mouth. The words were on his lips, like the white foam on the crest of a wave. The words hung there, the apologies for what he had said to Timothy, for taking them all the way up the Faraway Tree only to find that he wasn't brave enough to knock on Moonface's door, for not being enough like Joe. The wave paused. The beach was frozen. Then the wave rolled back out again, and the words were gone, and Jack rolled over and went to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

When most children wake in a place they have only arrived in the day before, they often forget where they are, and wonder why the wall by their bed looks different, or the smell is odd. Some have dreams that they are somewhere else, and when they awaken to find that they are at home they are dreadfully surprised. When Jack woke, he knew exactly where he was, even before he opened his eyes.

He also woke feeling something different inside. He spent a few moments trying to work out what it was. A illness? A homesickness? Shame? Shame seemed to come closest. When he remembered how he could not bring himself to see Moonface the day before, his throat tightened as though an apple was lodged there, and he felt hot and prickly all over. He would start this day much better. He got out of bed and pulled the journal from under the bed, where he had tucked it last night. He padded through the room towards the door. Peg was awake. Her hair was spread across the pillow and her sleep sealed eyes blinked blearily in the light. Timothy was still asleep. Jack walked out into the main room. It was early morning. Birds sung strange songs in the trees. It was not merry song, nor was it sad. It seemed wistful, lonely, and yet somehow mundane, as though he had heard it a thousand times before.

Jack walked to the door and unslotted it. He stepped barefoot into the dewy grass, and sat down on the cracked doorstep, the door leaning up beside him. The sky was pale grey blue, and wider than anything Jack had ever seen. A few skeletal trees were silhouetted in the distance. The tallest trees of the Enchanted Wood poked over a little dip close outside the cottage. The birdsong was louder here. It was a lone bird, perched on a wire some distance away. Jack wondered what type it was.

He stood up, and went back inside. His feet were freezing, but before jumping back into bed, he slipped into Mrs Josie's room. She was asleep, sprawled across the bed like some great sea monster, her gaping mouth issuing snores to rival Mr Whatzisname's. Jack slipped through the gap between the wardrobe, and climbed up the stairs. Instead of going to Joe's room, he went to Beth and Franny's room. He rummaged through chests of drawers and under beds. There were hair ribbons, nice dresses, working clothes, combs, beads, a pair of nail scissors, little slips of paper, pieces of broken glass, shiny pebbles; everything but what he was looking for. Then he found it. A little mirror. He sat on the bed and opened the book to the photo of Joe. He examined the picture: black and white, showing a boy Jack's age with a laughing yet serious face and a freckled nose. Jack inspected himself in the hand mirror. His hair was just a little longer than Joe's. Jack took up the nail scissors and snipped his hair shorter. He examined himself in the hand mirror again. He was too pale; Joe had lots more freckles, and very bright eyes, though it was hard to tell the colour in the black and white photo. Jack's eyes stayed stubbornly somewhere between grey and green.

He, Peg and Timothy were an 'unlucky bunch.' Grandpa Joe and Grandma Connie had been 'a match made in heaven.' Jack had seen their wedding photograph; Joe tall and strong looking, Connie bathed in white with fluffy gold ringlets in a halo around her head. Their father had been 'the perfect son,' smart, studious, funny, everything anyone could want in a person. When he had married Mum, and they had had Jack, everyone looked a little quizzical.

'He's fine, to be sure, but what a normal, plain little boy for such a vibrant couple.' When Peg had come, followed by Timothy, people had shaken their heads. Jack had seen the way their parents' friends looked at them - the way their parents themselves looked at them. When he was six, they had been given a nanny, who strongly disliked them. Perhaps it was that the children felt unloved, and so assumed that all adults held a grudge against them, and so distanced themselves from their nanny, but she certainly didn't like them much.

'Stop looking at me!' she would snap at Peg. 'You're making me feel funny.'

'You three are bad luck,' she had told them one day. 'All three of you were decidedly unhealthy when you were born - I'm a friend of your mother's, so I know. Ever since you three were born, there's been nothing but bad luck. Your mother lost her job, your father was de promoted, your family lost lots of uninsured items - everyone knows. You three are bad luck.'

Jack's parents were superstitious. When his mother had smashed a mirror, she had screamed and began to cry. When a black cat had looked Jack's father in the eye, he had gone white and shaky and had had to sit down. So when the Bad Things had begun to happen, Jack's parents had looked for something to blame. And their gaze had fell on their children.

Jack could vaguely remember his mother holding him, wiping food from around his mouth with a tender hand and a warm smile, of rocking him and singing to him, of sitting on his father's shoulders while going to the park. Peg had one or two memories like this, and poor Timothy had none at all. All the children had known were nannies after nannies, of never seeing their parents, of being treated like something which could explode at any moment.

Jack sighed and stood up. He knew that now they were living with Mrs Josie they wouldn't go back. Mrs Josie seemed to enjoy having them, he could hear her downstairs now, singing and calling for Peg and Timothy to, 'Come my friends, let's get up and play!' Jack tucked the journal under his arm and walked downstairs.

The three ate breakfast in silence, while Mrs Josie chattered on about all that they would do today. Jack couldn't think of anything he wanted to do less than spend a day 'playing at being children' with Mrs Josie, but he couldn't think of much else to do either.

'Can't we go out?' he asked. Mrs Josie looked hurt.

'Go out? Why; don't you want to play with me?'

'No,' said Jack, pushing his chair back and getting up from the table. 'I don't.' He put his plate on the dirty dishes pile and walked out the doorway. Mrs Josie stared after him.

'Well,' she said, 'he's not very pleasant.'


	10. Chapter 10

Jack walked along the country lane, hands in pockets. The grass was brown and uncut, and the dewy heads sparkled under the morning sun. Jack kicked aside stray strands which wet his feet inside their sneakers, and looked glumly at the fences and low hills crisscrossed with hedgerows and low stone walls. He soon arrived at the station, and sat on a wooden bench. The bench was wet, and he could feel the damp seeping into the back of his shorts. He did not move.

Presently, Peg and Timothy came along the road. Both looked neat and tidy, despite Mrs Josie's firm instructions that they were 'not to go about looking neat.' Peg had her hair braided - lopsidedly, as she had done it herself - and Timothy had a new sweater on, which already had snot stains down the front.

The three siblings sat next to each other on the bench, looking out at the building site and the town and the Enchanted Wood. The Faraway Tree could not be seen, though it should have been rising out of the Wood. Perhaps, thought Jack, the protective enchantment still held strong around the Faraway Tree.

'Jack,' said Timothy. 'Can you tell us the story about how Grandmother Connie got stuck up the magic ladder?'

Jack heaved a sigh of annoyance, and pulled the journal out from under his arm. He turned the pages slowly, as though it cost him great effort to find the right page. But inside he was excited to read the story. He loved reading about the adventures Joe had recorded in the journal. Joe was a talented writer, and every time Jack opened the book the world of eighty years earlier seemed to waft out like the scent of hot buttered toast and engulf him in a friendly wave of adventure.

He found the right page. _'Both me and my sisters,'_ he read, ' _Decided that we hated our cousin Connie, who had come to stay with us for a dreadfully long time. But as we were good children and did not want to upset our parents by excluding her, we let her come with us when Moonface invited us to have tea with him. After the despicable way she had behaved to us last time she had come up the tree (including tearing her dress, peeping in at the Angry Pixie's window and falling down the slippery slip) we all attempted to be as mean as we could to her. The Old Saucepan Man was as nasty as could be, and I do believe she had a dreadful time. But none of us even suspected that she would be so naughty as to climb up the ladder…'_ And with this Jack embarked upon the thrilling tale of daring and courage. Connie climbed up the ladder and the Land at the top of the Tree - The Land of Mysteries - moved away, taking Connie with it. But Joe was brave and thought quickly, as he knew that they must save Connie so Mother and Father wouldn't worry. He asked the Old Saucepan Man how they could get to The Land of Mysteries. Saucepan knew that The Land of Mysteries backed directly onto Giant Land, and so took them by train to his great friend, Jack, who lived in a castle and had a big beanstalk which reached up to Giant Land. They all climbed the beanstalk - Joe bravely first - and arrived in Giant Land. The giants up there were as big as mountains and their footsteps sounded like earthquakes. A massive wall separated Giant Land from the Land of Mysteries, which Joe and the others flew over by holding onto giant dandelion seeds. They landed on the other side, and found out that Connie had climbed The Ladder That Has No Top. So Moonface climbed up the ladder to save Connie, and take on an angry goblin trying to stop him.

'But why didn't Joe go up instead of Moonface?' asked Timothy. 'Isn't Joe braver than Moonface?'

This was a great question which Jack had been trying to answer ever since he had been given the journal as a little boy. 'Well,' he said, 'If Joe had gone, then Moonface wouldn't have had a chance to show he was brave. If Joe had done everything, then people like Moonface wouldn't have had the chance to show that they were brave as well.' He turned to his brother. 'That was a dreadfully silly question, Timothy!' He flicked a page and continued.

Moonface returned down the ladder, shepherding Connie. Everyone told her off and reminded her what a silly little girl she was, before going back into Giant Land. This time, they had a big pot of Giant Proof Paint, which they flicked at any giant which came near them. They found the beanstalk, and climbed down. _'And then we all went on the train back home,'_ finished Jack. _'What an adventure! Beth, Franny and I were tired but happy, and my good reputation had not been let down by that silly Connie. Thank goodness that I am such a good adventurer!'_ Jack closed the Journal. The two children sighed dreamily, and looked up at the clouds circling over the Enchanted Wood. What Lands were up there, just evading their grasp?

At this point, a train drew up at the station. Jack jumped. 'But the next train's not due until twelve!' he cried, before looking up at the sun, which was well into the sky. 'Goodness,' he said. 'We must have read for a long time.' Out of the train hopped a fat lady with a basket. She smiled at them.

'Good morning, my dears. Where are you from? I haven't seen you before.' She had a pleasant, thickly accented voice which Jack liked.

'We're staying with Mrs Josie,' he explained. 'Mum and Dad wouldn't have let us go normally - they're just busy.' The lady seemed very nice, and he felt it was dreadfully important to emphasize this point. 'They do love us, the just had to send us away for a bit. But we will go back.' The woman looked at him fondly.

'Yes dear, of course your parents love you. Who did you say you were staying with?'

'Mrs Josie.'

'Mrs -' the woman's face creased. 'Josephine Parsons?' she said in astonishment. 'I didn't know she was allowed to even look after children. She's completely mad - went insane after her parents abandoned her when she was little.' She stopped herself. 'If you're ever worried,' she told them, 'then come to me. My name's Janet Hodgson, and I live just along there.' She pointed further down the lane, to where a pleasant cottage sat nestled in a cluster of trees. 'Just come to me and I'll look after you,' she said with a motherly smile.

Jack wasn't sure how to respond. Was she really nice? Or was she really mad or evil? Did she hate them to, and was trying to trap them? Jack knew that Joe would have made sure that above all his siblings were safe. So he walked hastily away to the other end of the platform, where he hid behind some men in black suits who had just got off the train. He knew that Peg and Timothy would follow him, as they always did. He waited for the to appear around the tightly huddled group of men. But they didn't come. Annoyed, he peered between someone's legs. And there were Peg and Timothy… smiling, and thanking the woman! How could they? Did they realize the danger they were in? He was going to call out, but just in time Peg and Timothy turned and followed him. The woman gave them a long, worried look, before walking along the lane towards her homely looking cottage.

Peg and Timothy arrived, weaving their way through the men's legs. The men still did not notice. Jack was going to angrily tell off his two naughty siblings, until something the men were saying caught his attention. One man, with a blue checked tie, was finishing a conversation with another man.

'Yes, I quite agree Thompson, it will have to come down.' The train slid away, leaving the platform empty. 'Pooh,' the same man said. 'What a dump it is out here. Is that the place?' He pointed at the Enchanted Wood.

'That's it, all right,' said Thompson. 'It is a funny colour - the fellows out here were right.' He turned to the others. 'How many acres is the land again?'

'About five,' said another man with slanted eyes. 'Once all the trees are down, that'll give us plenty of room for the extensions of the town. There'll be room for a high rise carpark, several more roads, a community centre and plenty of office buildings, plus ample space for extra condensed housing.'

'There won't be any protesters, will there?' asked a nervous looking man with a ginger moustache. The checked tie man laughed.

'Protesters?' Don't be daft now Andrews! The public hate the Wood. They all say it's cursed, and they believe that it's filled with little animals wearing clothes. What's more, they seem to think that there's something dark and cursed right in the centre, to which none of them can reach!' The men all roared with laughter.

'I say, there's no one else here, is there?' said Slant Eyes nervously. The men looked all around the platform. They looked everywhere... except, of course, at their sides. The children stood next to them, listening and unnoticed. It is the one great power of being constantly ignored and despised that the victim is able to listen in on conversations and never be noticed.

'When will the demolition begin?' asked Checked Tie.

'It should begin tomorrow,' said Thompson. 'We're trying to get onto it as soon as possible to avoid wasting money on lawyers if any stupid Department of Environment gets involved.' The men laughed again, and set off across the platform. The three children remained behind, stunned.


	11. Chapter 11

All thought of telling off Peg and Timothy was lost. With a yell of, 'Come on,' Jack sprinted across the platform. As they ran along the ditch to the jumping point, one thought pounded in Jack's brain _. I must warn them_. He leapt the ditch, splashing himself with mud, and came to a grinding halt beside their tree. He pressed his left ear to the tree.

'Mr Tree, Mr Tree you've got to warn everyone!' he panted. 'There are some evil men who've come to the country, and they're going to cut down the entire Enchanted Wood!' At this, the tree stopped. Then it began to shake and shudder so violently that Jack could not hold on. He heard it's words, wailed in a leafy voice.

 _Cut down! No, no not me. I've been here for more than a hundred years. They can't cut me down. No, no, no, nononononono…_

And suddenly, all the trees of the Wood were shaking and shuddering as though in a violent earthquake. Jack leapt back from the tree, and found that the forest was filled with a deafening _whoosh - a - whoosh - a_ noise which sent the birds in the trees flying and squarking. The three children battled their way through thrashing branches and falling leaves. _Where are the others?_ Jack wondered. As this thought came to him, there came a crunching of undergrowth, and squirrels and hares all came flying past in a desperate frenzy to get out. 'Thank goodness,' said Jack out loud. 'They're off to defend the wood.' As he said this, he saw the old wizard, who was holding a staff and a large electric cigarette. 'Mr Wizard!' yelled Jack. 'Are you off to defend the Wood too?'

The wizard turned to him in surprize. 'What?' he shouted. It was hard to hear above all the whooshing from the trees. He held a hand to his face to keep away the leaves, as his grey cloak flapped around him. 'No dear boy, we're all escaping. The Enchanted Wood is done for. I'm off to Hobbiton.' With a cheery wave, the wizard turned, and was lost in the whirlwind of leaves and thrashing branches and running bodies.

'No, NO!' yelled Jack. He tried to grab at passing creatures; brownies, squirrels, foxes, gnomes, hares - but all were too fast and too eager to be gone. Desperately, Jack began to run towards the heart of the Wood. It was smotheringly hot, and the branches cut and smacked Jack's face. Still he pressed on, until he reached the Faraway Tree. Jack couldn't believe that the last time he had been here was only yesterday, when they had fully circled the tree in that green haze of serenity. But now, they had no time to lose. Jack began to climb furiously, his hands cutting and bleeding on the rough bark of the Tree. They reached the window of the Angry Pixie, who was getting his window repaired. He saw Jack, and opened his mouth to say something. Then his eyes slid to Peg and Timothy behind. The Pixie's face contorted in rage, his eyes turned to slits. 'You little nincompoops,' he screeched. 'How dare you return after making such a mess of my window! I can't believe you have the face to show up again.'

'Please,' began Jack. 'Please, the Faraway Tree's going to be cut down…'

'Be off with you!' screamed the pixie, blasting a mouthful of spittle over Jack. 'Go on, get out of my sight, or I'll throw all of my ink pots at you.'

Seeing it was no use staying, Jack continued on. The children soon came to Silkie's door. Jack banged on it loudly. It was opened by the pretty little fairy, who looked at them absently.

'Quick Silkie, quick!' said Jack. 'The Faraway Tree's going to be…'

'I'm so sorry, but I'm in a dreadful hurry,' said Silkie. 'The Faraway Tree's about to close, and I do so need to go and see the Brown Owl. Could you wait and give me your news when I get back? I won't be half an hour.'

'No,' said Jack, nearly weeping with frustration. 'Please, you must understand…' But the little fairy was already out the door and climbing daintily down.

'I'll see you when I get back!' she called gaily.

They kept on climbing. Soon they came to Mr Watzisname, snoring in his chair. Jack ran up to him and shook him hard. 'Mr Watzisname, Mr Watzisname, oh do wake up!' The old gnome slowly came to. He blinked blearily at Jack.

'Hello old fellow. What's up?'

'The Faraway Tree's going to be cut down!' cried Jack. Mr Watzisname looked shocked, and sat up straight.

'Cut down? What on earth… why?' Then he peered and Jack. 'Hang on… are you that little boy who threw a chestnut at me?'

'No,' said Jack nervously, but the gnome had already recognized him and seized him. It took all of Peg and Timothy's strength to prize his fingers loose, and the children ran away, Mr Watzisname close on their heels. 'I'll teach YOU to drop things on me!' roared the angry gnome.

At that moment, there came a slishy sloshy noise from above. Jack knew what it was, but did not try to duck, even thouh there was a bough close by. All three children got soaking wet, and covered in little flecks of dirt and grime and soapy suds. Mr Watzisname, who had ducked under a bough, was left behind.

'Mark my words, I'll get back on you!' his voice floated up the tree from below. With soap in his eyes and grit in his mouth, Jack kept climbing, his cut, bloodied fingers clinging onto the harsh bark. And there it was. Moonface's door. The one person he knew couldn't turn him away. But suddenly…

'Down you go, down you go!' A terrible clattering and clanging met the surprised children's ears. They looked about, and on the bough above them saw a strange looking man. He had saucepans and kettles threaded on a rope wound all around his body, so that nothing but his arms and feet could be seen. He even had a large saucepan for a hat.

'It's the Saucepan Man!' said Jack in surprise. The journal had a whole three pages devoted to a detailed description of the Saucepan Man, from where he came from to how deaf he was.

'Why must we go down?' asked Jack.

'Why must you drown?' said the Saucepan Man. 'Goodness, my young man, there's no need to drown.'

'He's deaf,' explained Jack loudly to the others. 'There's such a clattering in his ears from the saucepans and kettles all the time that he can't hear a word we say.'

'I can actually,' said the Saucepan Man in annoyance, hearing perfectly well. 'My ears just fail me occasionally. And you'd better be going down. The Faraway Tree is closed.'

'Closed?'

'It's been the regulations for the past seventy years,' said the Saucepan Man. 'No one out after six o'clock. The people of the Enchanted Wood are far too tiresome, and are always coming up here at dreadfully late hours. It's much better this way. Off you go then.'

In a last desperate effort, Jack tried again. 'Saucepan,' he said very slowly and clearly. 'Tell Moonface that the Faraway Tree is going to be cut down.' Saucepan hesitated as he processed this sentence.

'All right,' he replied merrily. 'I'll tell him next time I see him. I'll be away for about two weeks, but I'll tell him afterwards. Cheerio!' And he was gone.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hi everyone! This story is drawing to a close - I think there will be about 2 more chapters after this one. Thanks so much for reading, and I'd love some reviews!**

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The children arrived home muddy and dirty. Mrs Josie gasped in delight. 'You've been playing!' she cried delightedly, the burst into a cackle of insane laughter. 'I love to see children playing. I wish I could have watched you.'

The children got into their pyjamas and brushed their teeth in a tired dream. One by one they climbed into bed. Jack lay, looking up at the ceiling, too numb to think. Then that feeling rose again. It was that cross, bad feeling, that red hot burning feeling which made him want to be nasty.

'You two are pathetic,' he hissed into the darkness. 'Smiling at that stupid woman, and always following me around. You're the most pathetic cowards I've ever seen.'

There was a silence from the room's other two occupants. Jack rolled over, feeling satisfied. His breaths were short and choppy, like an unsteady sea under a burning red sunset. But then, in the darkness, Timothy spoke.

'We're not pathetic cowards.'

'What?'

Timothy sat up on his elbow and repeated himself calmly. 'We're not pathetic cowards.'

'Shut up, Timothy you idiot.'

'No.' Timothy's tone and volume did not change. He continued in that slow, calm tone. 'I won't shut up. I've shut up for too long. You're wrong Jack. We're not the pathetic ones. You are. When me and Peg faced the Pixie, you didn't come out and defend us. You hid out of sight around the side of the tree where he couldn't see you. When I talked to the squirrel you told me off, even though we learnt valuable information. When Peg and I thanked the woman for being kind you ran away because you couldn't think of anything to say, then made out that you'd been brave by getting away. When you dropped a chestnut into Mr Watzisname's mouth, you didn't even have the guts to walk up and put it in his mouth, but had to hide up high and drop it from a distance. Why, you didn't even have the courage to knock on Moonface's door! Whatever name you call me Jack, whatever name you could give me, a pathetic coward is the one which rings bitterest. You know why? Because that's not us, that's you. So don't you ever try to give me such names again.' Timothy sat, still propped on one elbow.

Jack's mouth was open. That red hot feeling was gone. He lay weakly in his bed. 'But… but…' he said, 'but I'm more like Joe than you and Peg. I'm far more like him. I do everything he does.'

'Exactly,' said Timothy. He did not hesitate as he spoke, not did he speed up. It felt as though this speech had been waiting to be said for a long time - not building up, but simply being planned and arranged in a straightforward manner. 'You are the spitting likeness to Joe. Can't you read between the lines of your journal? Joe wasn't a hero, he was a coward. When Beth had the Angry Pixie's water jug thrown at her, Joe didn't try to defend her or yell at the Angry Pixie, he just let it happen, like you. When Joe and the others went to rescue Connie, Joe pretended to be in the lead the whole time, despite not doing anything. When they reached the ladder, he made Moonface go up instead of him - like you when you listened to the nice lady at the station and then ran away. The only brave thing you've ever done, Jack, was today when you tried to warn the people of the Wood and the Tree. Why was it brave? Because it was the last thing Joe would have done.' Timothy sniffed, and wiped his nose. He lay down, snuffling his head into the pillow. His next words were softer. 'I will still follow you, Jack. Peg and I, we'll still go where you go, and do as you say. But at some point, at some time, we will choose not to follow you. That's all.'

He gave a sigh and pulled the blankets over his head. Soon the room was full of his and Peg's deep wave like breaths, grating in and out. But for Jack, sleep did not come for a long time.


	13. Chapter 13

Jack woke the others up early the next day. 'We've got to tell Moonface that the Tree's going to be cut down.' Jack's eyes were red from lack of sleep, and he moved with the unsteadiness of one whose world has been turned upside down. Peg and Timothy unquestioningly got up and got changed. The three left the house without breakfast or waking Mrs Josie, and hurried off down the lane.

The Enchanted Wood was surrounded by logging equipment: big chainsaws and massive brackets to hold fallen trunks. The children jumped over the ditch and walked into the strangely quiet wood. There were no rustles of animals, nor were there pitter pattering feet walking through the undergrowth. The trees had stopped their thrashing, and hung limp and dejected, leaves wilting and turning a golden brown. The three continued on through the strange silence, until the reached the Faraway Tree. They began to climb, without bothering to stop and try to warn its inhabitants. They passed the slippery slip with the Red Squirrel, and climbed up to the Angry Pixie's window, which they passed by without peeking into. Up they went, past Silky's sweet little door, past the vibrating snores of Mr Watzisname, avoiding the splashing suds of Dame Washalot's dirty washing water, up and up until they reached Moonface's door. On the bough outside they met the Saucepan Man, who was clattering his way down the ladder.

'Hello you lot!' he called merrily. 'Off to see Moonface?' Jack nodded. 'He's in, I believe. I've just been in the Land of Dreams.' Saucepan opened the lid of a kettle, out of which bubbled a multicoloured liquid. 'It's sleep remedy to help with good dreams,' the Saucepan Man explained. 'What a nice gift to give to people! You really should visit - though I believe it's on the move anytime now. Maybe another day.' He smiled at them. 'Have a pleasant day!'

Once the clatter of the Saucepan man's kettles and saucepans had died away down the Tree, Jack glanced up through the hole in the cloud. Above, he could see a misty purple sky, speckled with stars. Bubbles like brightly coloured mist wafted through the air, and figures in sparkling robes floated here and there. Jack caught his breath. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; that one tiny patch of Dream World hidden behind the cloud. It was the only land Jack would ever see.

The world filled Jack with something warm and powerful, and Jack knew that it was courage. Not hesitating for a moment, Jack walked up to Moonface's door and rapped sharply. There was the sound of feet, then the door was opened by a short, round faced little man. He was merry looking and flung the door wide open. 'Saucepan!' he cried. 'I thought I heard you…' But his words died on his lips. Moonface stared at Jack, and Jack stared at Moonface.

Finally, Jack thought. The one person who would understand. The one peoson who would listen to him and accept him for who he opened his mouth to say something, but Moonface spoke first.

'Joe?' he said in wonder. 'Is that you?'

And suddenly Jack could bear it no longer. With a wild sob, he rushed away, down the Tree, away from himself and everything he stood for, pausing at intervals to try and rip out his hair and his face and his soul and everything about him which seemed to speak Joe, Joe, Joe.

This boy is Joe. This boy is a coward. This boy is a copy of a coward. This boy is pretending to be someone else. On and on these awful, bitter thoughts raged.

It was only when Jack reached Silkie's bough that he stopped. Something wasn't right. It took him a few seconds to realize what it was.

Peg and Timothy were not behind him.

In fear and terror, Jack raced back up the Tree. The cuts on his fingers, barely healed from yesterday, reopened and spilt fresh blood as Jack hauled himself upwards, boug after bough, his fingernails splintering and his face cutting on the bark. He reached the final bough just as Moonface, who had been peering down the Tree with mild interest to see who it was who had left in such a hurry, went back into his little round house inside the tree. Jack sprang onto the branch. But Peg and Timothy weren't there.

And then, from above came an awful rushing noise, and though Jack knew it was too late, even though he knew that Peg and Timothy had kept their promise and left him, though he knew that they had gone up into the Land of Dreams, though he knew that the Land of Dreams was moving on, taking his siblings with it, still he ran for the ladder and hurled himself up it, thrusting his head and shoulders into a swirling purple mist.

And though Jack knew it was too late, still he yelled their names, again and again, and apologised over and over again, and promised that from now on he would be Jack not Joe, until he had not a breath in his body.


	14. Chapter 14

The foresters were preparing to start on the first tree. They drained their mugs of weak coffee, donned their hard hats and brightly coloured coats, and picked up their chainsaws.

'Pretty depressed stretch of woodland,' said one bloke. 'Look, all the trees are wilted!'

As they approached the stretch where they were to begin, they saw a little boy with tousled hair and a freckled face, holding, of all things, a door. The door's hinges were rusted through, and on it was painted, in large letters, a simple slogan.

DON'T CUT DOWN THE FARAWAY TREE

'What's the Faraway Tree?' one worker asked. The group approached the small boy.

'Hey you kid,' said one of the toughest workman. 'Clear off, get out of here. We don't want protesters.'

The boy looked at them strangely, with large grey eyes, and the foresters found, to their astonishment, that they were unable to hold his gaze, but had to look away. 'I can't move,' said the boy. 'Not until you stop cutting, anyway.'

'All right then,' replied the tough forester. 'We'll cut down all of the trees in this bloody forest, and then you can go home. That sound good?' Without waiting for a reply, he called his team towards one particular tree, and they set to work.

All of that day the crew worked and Jack sat there. He sat into the night, and all of the next day, and the next. The workmen got worried and tried to give him some of their weak coffee, but he refused. They wrapped him in blankets and continued working away, gradually cutting inwards. The island of trees grew smaller and smaller. Jack had to move further and further in by the day, still holding the door with it's message.

None of the workman knew who he was, and all of them felt a little unnerved by him. They tried telling their officials, but they weren't interested in one lone protester, who wasn't even properly protesting anyway.

Finally, the workman cut down the very last tree. The day was dark and grey, with a drizzling rain. A little crowd of local farmers and the townspeople from nearby stood and watched. The tree fell as though in slow motion, gently, gently, then all at one, dropping soundlessly to the forest floor like a fainting lady. And as it did, a trunk materialized out of thin air. The trunk was followed by branches, and branches, and branches. Up and up it went, high into the clouds. The workmen stumbled backwards, gaping in shock. All the farmers out in the fields and the townspeople in their busy lives stopped and gazed in sheer amazement up the Faraway Tree.

Jack didn't see. He was barely conscious, drifting in and out of reality. His lips blue, his cold fingers twisted like demented question marks around the edge of the blanket, he stared into the distance.

In his mind, he was in a dark room, face to face with Joe. Not Grandpa Joe, with white hair and a drool flecked chin. This Joe was black and white and two dimensional; cut of the photo glued into the journal. His hair was just the right amount of tousled, and his whole face was fixed in a permanent smile, caught mid laugh by the photographer. Joe's edges were rough and brittle, as though the person who had cut him out was in a hurry, or was clumsy with scissors.

'I'm braver than you,' said Jack. 'I didn't run away from the Faraway Tree. I stayed with it until the very end.' The paper cutout was silent. 'You're nothing but a coward,' whispered Jack.

The paper cutout Joe stood there and laughed and laughed, eyes squinted and mouth open, perfectly still, without making a sound.

THE END

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 **Thank you very much for reading! I've had heaps of fun writing this, and I hope the ending wasn't too abrupt (it took a few re-drafts.) If you did like this story then I'd love some reviews to let me know what you enjoyed!**


	15. Chapter 15 (epilogue)

**Hello! Thank you for reading my story, and for reading the whole thing! As you will have seen, the previous chapter is the last chapter, and is the proper end of the story. However this epilogue came to me afterwards, and as I always felt the ending of this story was a bit unsatisfactory I thought I'd add it in. To juggle things up a bit I wrote it in second person. Hope you enjoy!**

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The day is cold and grey, as it always seems to be in this part of the country. On one side of you is a wide expanse of farmed fields, like a grey patchwork quilt of clumsily knitted squares spread lumpily over the landscape. Here and there, farm cottages are dotted, sheltered by dim trees.

On your other side lies the town. It is still, ghostly, an eerie silence spread over it like fog. Cars dribble along the main road in a miserable little procession, no one quite sure where they are going or what they are meant to be doing.

Your hair blows in your eyes and you hug your coat tighter around yourself. At your feet is a hump of earth, a little hillock lumping slightly higher than the rest of the flat landscape. A crude wooden cross, no more than a foot long, lies on top of the soil. Beside it is a stone, with a carved inscription. _Here lies a nameless boy._

You shiver, and look around you, at the acre of tree stumps and fallen leaves. In the centre is a big, bare circle of brown soil. Nothing more.

There is the crunching of dead leaves, and a man comes hobbling through the tree stumps. He is an old man, with white hair. He sees you, and comes over. 'I carved that stone,' he says, waving his hand down at the grave. You nod. You both stand in silence. 'I'm a forester,' he adds. 'Or I used to be. I cut down trees.' You stand in silence a little longer, you looking at the sky, him at the stone and the cross. 'Did you see the tree?' the man asks. You don't reply, but your silence seems to encourage him. 'Of course you wouldn't, I suppose. It was when I was still a young man and they were planning on developing the town more. There was a big wood here... once. We were instructed to cut down the whole thing, which we did, of course. When we cut down the last tree, it fell really slowly,' he explains. 'Then out of thin air, a trunk appeared. It was the trunk of a massive tree. It went up and up, right up into the clouds. And as I looked at it, I remembered being a little boy, and sitting on my grandfather's knee while he read me a story from a big green book. It was called _The Faraway Tree_. And I felt... I felt like I was a little boy again. Still come here every day, even in my old age.' He gazes towards the bare patch of ground again.

'He was dead when we got to him. The little boy. Dead the second the tree vanished. That's what it did, you see. It vanished into thin air. Just like that. They never did do the extension of the town, building those extra carparks and supermarkets or whatever it was. Everyone had a change of heart. Now there's just the tree stumps.'

The breeze blows and blusters, cold fingers pinching and nipping. The forester turns. But there is no one there. He frowns. 'Funny. I could have sworn there was someone there, looking at the sky.' His frown deepens. 'Who was I talking to then?'

The grey sky grows greyer, sinking further and further away. Shadows descend, punctured by feeble pinprick lights from the town. The old man shivers. 'I wonder what happened to that red book,' he says aloud. 'When I wrapped the little boy in blankets, I saw it, poking out from under his coat. But when we buried him, it was gone.' He shakes his head. 'Strange, eerie feel out here,' he whisperes. 'As though ghosts will come out. Always has been, ever since the wood was cut down.' He hurries away, and is swallowed in the night.

The wind drops. The night calms. And as it does, something appears in the bare circle of soil. A trunk, climbing high into the air. A tree stands there, its topmost branches reaching right into the clouds. Lanterns swing from boughs, and merry chatter fills the air as little folk climb up and down with a ghostly quietness.

Above the tree hangs a low, dark cloud. Somewhere up there is a ladder, which leads from the tree right into that cloud, to the land on top of it. You look away from the Faraway Tree, towards the cottage where you once stayed a brief, unwelcome stay. It is no more. It burned down in a fire years ago, Mrs Josie inside.

You wait. You will wait for however long it takes, whether it be tonight, or in one hundred years. You have all the time in the world. You stand as the earth spins around and the stars wheel and the asteroids plummet. Your only movement is the rhythmic rubbing of your finger, as you trace the gold letters embossed on the cover of the red book under your arm.

Because you hope that some day, at some time, Peg and Timothy might come down from the clouds, clamber down the Faraway Tree and forgive you.

Ah! What we humans will do for forgiveness.

So it was that Jack's ghost stood by his grave, waiting.


End file.
